We have been friends with the humans for many egg layings. When they came to the world of Mdorr, after the initial… misunderstandings, we reached an accord. The first such agreement was made in the nation of Mmk-hrrsonn, one of the kdarr’s oldest lands. As the other nations of Mdorr saw the small humans would happily trade iron and other precious metals for ceramic tools or bolts of kdarr strongcloth, it became clear that driving the humans away would be a mistake, assuming it was even possible.

Thus began a friendship that has served our people well for millenia. Many have taken the chance to hunt among the stars, and even those who have remained at home on Mdorr have been granted wonderful gifts. My grandfather lost his left leg in hunt, before I was born, before even my mother was born. A kdarr hospital built him a prosthesis by combining human and kdarr medical technology. He was one of the first test cases, and while he was no longer as fast as he had been, but he could still run.

It is said that there are as many kinds of bogeymen to frighten children into good behavior as there are stars in the universe; beyond those that were carried into the Ingressa by those first societies that Stepped from Earth, there are the ones that have developed as humanity spread and mingled with other sentient species, sharing their creatures and picking up new ones for their own stories. (more…)

I live at the center of the universe. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Nova Roma, whatever those petty little empire builders tell you. You probably think I’m going to say Sanctuary, and I guess you’re sort of right. You’re thinking too big, though. Maybe it’s the city the Ingressa spins around, but I’m talking about the heart of the city. Every day I wade through the powerful and the powerless from a hundred solar systems eating and fighting, fucking and sleeping, working and playing. Because here in Sanctuary, at the center of the universe, there’s a hotel.

Humans, dwarves, and kdarr form an Ingressa-wide alliance and are thus sometimes collectively called the Allied Races. That’s the gist of it, but of course it’s not that simple. Simple or not, though, here are five things everyone knows about the Allied Races.(more…)

(This is the first column of updates on the status of the settings that have appeared in Worlds in Motion. Every few months, I will write more. If there are particular planets or situations that you would like to hear more about, put in a request on the forums and I’ll be sure to incorporate it in the next set of dispatches.)(more…)

In order to understand the present situation on Thyrsis, one must understand the religion of its people. They believe that the cosmos is ruled by two principles: the eternal, all-knowing, and perfectly just Payre; and the fickle Zhaneuse who metes out the comic and tragic fortunes of earthbound life. The majority of Thyrsans interpret this to mean that the material world corresponds to the divine as theater does to reality, with each person having a role to enact until the play ends and they begin again in another incarnation. A minority believe that by embracing their fortunes, good or bad, they will entertain Zhaneuse enough to earn a reward in this life or the next, while an even smaller minority withdraw from the world entirely to meditate on the divine play itself.(more…)

Although the existence of Thyrsis has been a matter of record since the explorations of Thuria Pontia, her description of the world – “everywhere is ice, and even the stars are cold” – assured that the only visitors there were those pergressors undertaking the Peregrinatio. Twenty-two years ago, however, an expedition to conduct a more thorough survey of the planet discovered that it was home to a unique twin culture.(more…)

Welcome back to the archives. Welcome, welcome. Good to have you back. It’s Friday, you know, and what better way to celebrate the end of a long week of work than with something free from the archives? And what do we have this week? Let’s see…

–Sir Oliver Quimby, Royal Archivist

Every Friday, we will give you a free… thing. We call it our Friday Finale. For the near future, at least, most Friday Finales will be PDFs of some nature, but we already have several other types of things in the works!

This week’s inaugural Friday Finale has nothing to do with our iconic pergressors (but make sure to check out all of this week’s columns for more on them!). Instead, it is a two-part, very general guide to bringing kdarr to life in your writing and games.

Part one, the 4-page PDF entitled simply Kdarr, gives an overview of kdarr society and psychology in the broadest terms possible. It also contains a short section of 10 kdarr nations, to demonstrate some of the different outlooks kdarr might have.

Part two, the 1-page PDF entitled Kdarr as a Playable Race, presents the kdarr as a player character race for the OGL and, more specifically, Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Neither part is dependent on the other (i.e., non-gamers and players of other games lose nothing by only reading part one, while OGL and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game players can use just the game mechanics stuff and not worry at all about how we present kdarr (although we non-humbly feel you’ll be missing out if you do that!).

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Compatibility with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game requires the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing, LLC. See http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Paizo Publishing, LLC does not guarantee compatibility, and does not endorse this product.

Pathfinder is a registered trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility Logo are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License. See http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility for more information on the compatibility license.